


No One Else I Trust

by In_agony_and_ecstasy



Series: No Matter What [2]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: (the explicit sexual content is not a rape scene), Abstinence, Abusive Past relationships, Abusive Relationships, Alternate Universe - Domestic, Anniversaries, Bi!Jean, Bisexuality, Confessions, Explicit Sexual Content, Fights, First Times, Flashbacks, Friends to Lovers, Insecurity, Jean's POV, Long-Term Relationship(s), M/M, Meet the Family, Promiscuity, Recovery, Secrets, Self-Acceptance, Self-Discovery, Trauma, Trust, bi!Connie, hypersexuality, make ups, meet the parents, rape mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-23
Updated: 2016-07-23
Packaged: 2018-07-26 07:39:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7565743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/In_agony_and_ecstasy/pseuds/In_agony_and_ecstasy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Connie wakes Jean up early to surprise him with a six-month-anniversary gift. This upsets Jean for reasons Connie can't understand, and the two fight about it. When they finally make up, Connie coaxes an explanation out of Jean. Why doesn't he celebrate anniversaries? Why doesn't Jean like his gift? The answer is more disturbing than Connie could have ever guessed, and the two spend a day together unraveling, twining themselves back together, and trusting each other more than ever before.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No One Else I Trust

**Author's Note:**

> Before reading this, PLEASE take note that this fic includes rape/non-con. HOWEVER, neither Jean nor Connie is the rapist. The rape takes place in a vague flashback, with minimal detail, and most of the trauma/rape itself is IMPLIED/dialogue. The rapist is NOT a canon aot/snk character, and remains unnamed. The rape is NOT meant to be sexualized, or erotic, or arousing. It is written in a way that CLEARLY reinforces the message that rape is not only wrong, but vile, and traumatizing. And, perhaps most importantly, this is NOT a story about how Connie magically heals Jean after what he went through. 
> 
> Also: The themes of this piece are largely sexual, meaning: this piece is ABOUT sex. That doesn't mean that it's porn from beginning to end - actually it's quite the opposite, though there is a sex scene (that isn't the rape scene.) If sex makes you uncomfortable, if you're sex-repulsed, or just don't want to read about struggles relating to sexuality/sex, this is not the story for you. 
> 
> For anyone still interested, thank you for reading!

Connie’s lips trailed down the length of my neck, pulling me out of my sleep. My eyes flickered open. With blurry vision, I scanned the room. My room was pale. Everything was a wash of faded blue, and even though the sun wasn’t up yet I squinted from the sudden light anyway. 

Connie’s hand trailed down my side. I shivered as his fingers slipped under my boxers so that he could grip on to my ass. He sighed against my shoulder.

“Happy anniversary,” he whispered. 

“Doesn’t count,” I mumbled, still half-asleep. “Only counts if it’s been a year.”

“So I guess I’ll just keep your gift away from you for another six months.”

My eyes snapped open. I rolled over to face him to see if he was serious. “You got me something?”

His hand slid out from under my boxers and rested against my stomach. “Yeah, why? Made you breakfast too. It’s a little burned but –”

“You got me a gift,” I repeated, “Because we’ve been together half a year.”

“Yeah. _Why_?” 

I hesitated to respond, swallowing with some difficulty. Now that he had mentioned breakfast, the smell of it had wafted into the room. Definitely a little burned, but sweet too, and my stomach grumbled. 

It was barely six AM. He must have gotten up over an hour ago to make it. Connie _loathed_ mornings and he had gotten up early to make me breakfast, and for what? For an anniversary that didn’t mean anything? 

“Connie…how much was my gift? What the fuck, you don’t – you don’t even have a job right now. You don’t have the money for –”

He cut me off by kissing me, and for a moment I wanted to let him distract me. After all, he’d given me quite a bit of excess time this morning to wake up, and my morning wood was relentless after all that shoulder-kissing and ass-grabbing. 

But I couldn’t. My lips parted from his. I stared into his eyes. 

“You shouldn’t have gotten me anything,” I said, “I mean it. Anniversaries don’t mean anything, Connie. And we don’t have the fucking money. Rent’s due in a few days. Whatever it is, return it.”

I climbed out of bed, trying not to look at Connie’s hurt expression and failing. I sighed, and sat right back down. I leaned in to kiss him. He kissed back, but his earlier passion was gone and his lips felt cold. My hand reached for his and I held it. A minute passed, as I tried to figure out a way to make up for ruining his morning, but nothing came to me. All I could do was change the subject.

“What’d you make for breakfast?” I asked. I could at least eat the breakfast he’d made. I couldn’t remember the last time he had cooked anything that wasn’t microwavable, so this was a big deal.

Connie glanced at the bedroom door, as if he could see through it right into the kitchen. “Pancakes.”

I smiled. “Didn’t know you knew how to make pancakes.”

“I don’t,” he mumbled, “My mom does.”

“So then you –”

“Called her last night while you were at work.” He finished my thought for me.

I blushed, thinking about everything he’d planned for today. I hadn’t even realized today was our sixth month anniversary – because anniversaries were pointless – let alone planned something. But despite myself, I felt warmth bubbling up in my gut.

I hadn’t celebrated an anniversary in a long time. “Smells good,” I mumbled, kissing his cheek and climbing out of bed once more. He followed behind me. His hands clung to my hips as we strode into the kitchen. Sure enough, two plates were piled with pancakes on our coffee table, accompanied by syrup, butter, a glass of orange juice for me, and a bottle of Gatorade for him. I chuckled at the effort put into being romantic, and how unromantic sitting on the couch for breakfast was. But it was so _us_.

As Connie’s hands slid around me to hug me to his chest, I cleared my throat. He didn’t deserve how I reacted this morning. No one, _no one_ had ever done something like this for me and I made him feel like shit for it.

“I can’t believe you did all this,” I said.

“Why? It’s nothing big.”

I shook my head. “Yeah, it is.”

“It’s just breakfast.”

My jaw dropped, but I snapped it shut right away. _Just breakfast_. He’d thought to go out of his way for me. Just to make me happier, just to celebrate some fake testament to our relationship. And he didn’t even get anything out of it. I was already fucking him for nothing. So, why bother? 

“Why’d you do this, Con?” 

His lips placed a kiss between my shoulder blades, which was about how tall he was. “Wanted to, that’s all.”

 _That’s all._ As if it was nothing. 

I wriggled around to face him, and cupped his cheeks in my hands. It took me a second to brace myself to say it, but I did.

“Thank you, baby.” I bent down to kiss him. “Really. I’m sorry I got mad.”

He shrugged, brushing it off like always. I rolled my eyes, but didn’t call him out on it. 

We sat down then. The pancakes had cooled, but they weren’t as burned as I thought they’d be and they were filled with chocolate chips. He drowned his in syrup. All I needed was butter. He drank his disgusting Gatorade.

“Drinking that with breakfast should be illegal,” I said.

“It’s just like drinking coffee.”

I snorted. “Not even a little bit at all, dude. One is repulsive and the other is coffee.”

He laughed at this. We settled into our morning. By the time I’d eaten my pancakes, and curled up with him on the couch, I had almost forgotten the abrupt awakening this morning. 

But Connie’s fingers threaded through my hair as he searched for something on Netflix to watch, and he opened his mouth to speak. When nothing came out after his intake of breath, I knew he was about to bring it up again. Even though he knew I didn’t want to hear it. 

“What?” I said, holding back my sigh.

“I can’t return your gift. It’s not that kind of gift. So do you want it?”

The sigh escaped anyway. “You shouldn’t have bought it.”

“Thanks, you mentioned that. Now, do you want it or not?” 

I squirmed out of his arms on the couch into a sitting position. Without him to keep me warm in our under-heated-to-save-money apartment, I had to tug a blanket around my shoulders. My toes wriggled. They were chilled from resting against the hardwood. Connie didn’t take up much space, but when we both piled onto the couch I always ended up hanging off of it somehow. 

“Sure, go get it,” I said. 

Connie leapt off the couch and darted into the spare bedroom that used to be his. A moment later he ran back out and jumped back on to the couch beside me. Feeling a headache coming on, I groaned. I still wasn’t quite awake enough for all his energy. I pinched the bridge of my nose. My palms dug into my eyes, trying to wipe the sleepiness out of them. 

“Here,” he said, taking my hand and placing two sturdy pieces of paper in it. Squinting, I studied them. Then my eyes widened.

“Train tickets?”

Connie grinned. “You haven’t seen your mom since Christmas.”

For a moment I couldn’t think of what to say. I gawked at the tickets in my hands, ran my fingers over them, thought of my mom’s face when I surprised her midway through the semester with a visit. This wasn’t just a gift to me, it was for her too. 

“Connie this…” I interrupted my protest mid-sentence, suddenly realizing how many he’d handed me. “Why are there two?”

“For you and me, duh.” A shy smile spread across Connie’s face and he scratched the top of his buzzed head. 

He looked adorable, bashful, and like everything I ever wanted. 

And now I had to break his fucking heart.

“Connie, I don’t bring home boyfriends.”

His eyebrows furrowed. “Doesn’t your mom know you’re bi?”

I winced before rephrasing my statement. “I don’t bring home girlfriends _or_ boyfriends. I don’t introduce my mom to anyone I’m fucking.”

Connie shook his head. Confusion etched into every line of his face. “I don’t get it. Why not?”

I sighed. “Look, it’s nothing, okay? I just don’t bring people home.” 

“It’s not nothing.” Connie’s voice was curt. He glared at me, and I felt the world fall out from underneath me wondering what it would take to really piss him off. We never fought – Connie never fought with _anybody_. Half the time he didn’t notice he had something to be pissed about and the other half…he was just too good of a person to work up a fuss about it. 

Seeing him pissed _at me_ would be almost as bad as just bringing him home. Just the thought of introducing him to my mom, seeing her face light up and her ask me if he might be the one made me feel like throwing up. She didn’t deserve to get her hopes up like that. And I didn’t want to have to explain to her why it didn’t work out one day.

The silence dragged on and Connie stood up from the couch. He paced around like he did whenever he was on the phone. His hands combed through imaginary hair as he almost tripped over one of our backpacks and ended up sitting on our coffee table, pushing dishes damn near onto the floor. 

“What’s this about, Jean? Is it me? What is it with people I date and them not wanting their parents to fucking meet me!” This, he yelled into his hands. Of course I had completely forgotten about Sasha. To be honest I tried to think about their relationship and their breakup as little as possible. Too much doubt swam into my mind whenever I did.

He’d been so happy with her. He dated her for two years, and before her he’d never had anyone else. Never wanted anyone else. Sash had been his world. And if she hadn’t broken up with him, he sure as fuck wouldn’t have either. 

But she did break up with him. 

And he picked me up so soon afterward.

The _night_ afterward.

What was I supposed to make of that? Six months later, I still didn’t know. 

“I – No. It’s not about _that_ ,” I said. 

“Then what’s it about?” he yelled, jumping up again and flailing his arms around. One of the dishes fell on the floor and he hissed, diving for it before syrup glued itself to the floorboards forever. 

“It’s not about – ” And again, I cut myself off. I couldn’t tell him what this was about. He couldn’t know.

No one could. 

“What?” Connie’s voice strained, hoarse now that he’d been yelling and filled with emotion. He looked like he was in pain, but I didn’t care. I couldn’t be bothered to care. He thought I was hurting _him_? He had no idea what it was like to be hurt by someone you loved. 

“I told you,” I spit, “It’s _nothing_.” 

Whatever he was about to say, he let it go. His expression stiffened as he walked toward the door.

“Where are you going?”

“Sash’s.” 

And just like that, he left me in the apartment alone. 

I went back to bed. 

… 

When Connie finally made it home, I was scrunched up in the tub, my limbs hungover the lip of the tub like clothes hung to dry. I sighed as his footsteps thumped closer toward the outside of the bathroom door. He knocked.

“What?” I asked.

“I’m back from Sash’s.”

I rolled my eyes. “I can tell.”

Connie hesitated. “Can I come in?”

My fingers twirled in the water, creating a tiny whirl-pool. Earlier I had refilled the tub twice after it had cooled. My body was starting to ache from resting against the porcelain and my fingers were pruning, but I didn’t want to get out. 

“I guess.”

The bathroom door swung open and Connie stepped in. He flipped the toilet lid down and sat on it.

“Sash thinks I fucked up.”

Despite myself, I smiled. That was the last thing I had expected him to say. “You didn’t. It’s really no big deal.”

He pursed his lips. His feet tapped against the bathroom tile. His eyes wandered around the room. I knew he was trying not to look at me. Even if he’d seen me naked a hundred times he still stared whenever I undressed like a teenage boy discovering a playboy magazine. Whenever he looked at me like that, my thoughts almost cleared of doubt. 

“But…obviously it is, dude. You can’t tell me there’s not a reason you don’t bring people home.”

I glanced at him. His fingers were laced together. His jaw clenched, his hazel eyes dug a hole in me and I had to look away. My toes curled and uncurled underneath the steaming water. My heart was pounding, and I could feel it in every bit of my body. It felt like it was pounding against me. Like the water should be rippling because of it. I’d never told him – anyone, about _anything_ that had gone on with the people I dated. Only now that I was dating Connie did I even realize that something about my past relationships was just… _wrong_. And more than just out-of-place wrong. 

“I thought,” I started, and my voice quivered, “before I was dating you, that the reason I never brought anyone home to mom was because I wasn’t in any relationships serious enough for that.”

Connie blinked at me, trying to decode the deeper meaning behind what I said and coming up blank. “But…that’s not why?”

I shook my head. My next exhale wavered. My head might as well have been underneath the water at this point, breathing was so difficult. “It’s because I didn’t want my mom to see how they treated me…and because…well, they probably wouldn’t have wanted to meet her anyway.”

Connie’s eyebrows furrowed. Something about what I’d said made him scoot closer to me, and he sat on the ledge of the tub. Rolling up his sleeve with one hand, he dipped the other into the water to hold mine. In comparison to his dark skin, my own hand was nearly translucent under the water. His grip was tight on me.

“What are you talking about? I mean – I know No- Samuel, right? His name was Samuel?” I nodded and Connie continued, “Was a dick, but…”

“I don’t mean him.” Although, Connie was right of course. Samuel was definitely a dick. 

“Who then? And…how – what do you mean…you didn’t want her to see how they treated you?”

Again, I hesitated. This time, it wasn’t just because I’d never said it out loud before and it scared me shitless. It was because I didn’t know how to. Because I was afraid he’d think less of me. Because I was afraid he’d get mad. Or not want to be with me anymore. Or think nothing of it, and I’d realize that I made it out to be something huge when it wasn’t anything at all. Or worse, blame me for what had happened.

Because any way I looked at it, this was my fault. 

“Okay so…You probably don’t remember half the people I’ve been with,” I said. Connie nodded before I continued, “But, uh, the people I’ve been with…and, you know, not the one-night stands, but the actual people I’ve dated, they’ve…I think they might have, um.”

Connie looked exhausted with all my stammering, but I couldn’t help it. I didn’t know how to say what I meant.

“Okay, so I dated this one guy for like three months.” 

I remembered him asking me out. We had worked together in a biology course, and had a little too much fun the entire period completely ignoring our work. He caught a glimpse of my phone, which at the time had a very inappropriate lock-screen of my last hookup. Tacky, I knew, but the guy had been cute, and he’d let me take pictures after we were, uh, _done_. And as a joke, I’d set the picture as my lock-screen just to theatrically express my appreciation to him. Days later, my only excuse for not changing the picture was laziness, but in any case, my lab partner saw it. 

“Thank God,” he’d said, “I was beginning to think you didn’t like guys.”

I had laughed, relieved he hadn’t been weirded out by the picture. The whole time we’d been working together I had been wondering if he liked guys too. “What made you think that?”

He glanced, pointedly, at the girl I’d been checking out for most the class period. Basically, in that class I spent the whole time either staring at him, or her, the only other attractive person in the room. It passed the time.

“Oh,” I’d said, blushing, “Yeah, I uh, I’m actually bi.”

Best to get that out of the way quick. Plenty of people had turned me down because of it. 

“Really?” He responded. “Bi boys are my favorite.”

Thinking back, the way he’d said that would disgust me now. But at the time, no one had _ever_ reacted that positively to my sexuality before and I felt exhilarated. I felt like this guy would accept me for who I was. 

We began dating. 

“So, this guy was a fucking creep,” Connie snapped. 

I winced. “I know.”

“I can see why you wouldn’t bring him home.”

“It’s not just that. He uh…fucked me, a lot. Like…a lot, a lot. And he never let me top.”

Connie’s head jerked back, like that was the most poorly constructed English grammar he’d ever heard, and he could hardly make sense of it. “Are you fucking serious?”

“He told me he didn’t like sex like that, and if I wanted to top, I should be fucking a girl instead. At the time…I guess I thought he was right. When I was with girls I only ever topped and didn’t question it, you know?”

Connie shook his head. “Uh, no? I don’t know. That’s fucked up.”

“Anyway…I mean, a lot of guys have a preference but this was like, we were in a relationship and he didn’t care what I wanted, and wouldn’t talk to me about it. He also never, uh, got me off.”

It took Connie a moment to react to that. Even when he’d topped the first time, he’d gotten me off. And it wasn’t easy for him either. He’d made it his priority. He’d _wanted_ to make me feel good. And even after I told him he didn’t have to blow me, since he didn’t know how, he did anyway. 

“Not at all?”

I shook my head. “When I asked, he told me that it made me look desperate and selfish. He told me bottoms were supposed to jerk themselves off during sex. And I guess…I just sort of believed him. That was all I’d ever seen in porn so –”

“Why are you defending him?” Connie interrupted me. His hand was gripping so tightly onto mine. His sleeve had rolled back down his arm and had slipped into the water. Apparently he didn’t notice. 

“I’m not. I mean, I wouldn’t now. I know it’s fucked up _now_. But that’s just, how I thought then…”

Connie shook his head, not like he didn’t believe me, but like he didn’t want to. “Can’t believe I don’t remember this guy. So, what, you broke up with him right?”

I winced again. Connie deadpanned at my guilty expression. I sighed. “He cheated on me. And when I confronted him about it, after I found out…he told me he didn’t understand why I was upset because I was never his boyfriend…I was just his placeholder-fuck because he only seriously dated gay guys. When I asked why he’d even bothered with me, he said it was because bi guys were easy attention whores. And – And…”

My hands were shaking. I pinched the bridge of my nose, feeling the tears prick at my eyes. I could still feel how his fingers pinched my chin, so he could tilt my head up to look at him. The smirk he wore was branded in my memory and it still hurt to recall it. In the two years that’d passed, I could still recall his voice like it was playing through a microphone. _“And I was right, wasn’t I? You slept with me the first night.”_

“And…” I tried again, “I mean, I couldn’t even argue with him ‘cause –”

Connie shushed me. “Don’t say shit like that.” The fierceness in his tone startled me. I glanced up. He’d stood up, and was undressing now. My body was long, wide, and lean. I could barely fit in this tub. But Connie was short, thin, and wiry. He dipped his feet in and curled up into the space between my legs. His own legs hooked over my hips, and he tucked his feet underneath my ribs. His hands rested on my hips. The only noise in the room was the sound of the water sloshing around as his hands roamed along my body, before settling in my own hands. 

“What else?” He sounded earnest, patient, like all he could stand to do in the world at that moment was listen to me. My nerves loosened up a bit and I told him about the last person I’d even introduced to my mom. I met her freshmen year, but crushed on her for months before finally gaining the courage to ask her out. 

With her, for a long time, I was able to ignore the fact that I liked guys. I honestly liked her so much that I hardly paid any attention to anyone else. And because of that, weeks went on before I even mentioned my sexuality with her. I wasn’t as open about it then as I was now. But when I did finally say it, it came out casually, as if I had nothing to worry about. Because with her, I didn’t think I did. 

We were at the movies, my arm wrapped around her. She was eating popcorn, and my fingers were twirling her long blond hair around, when a shirtless scene with the male lead flicked on to the screen. My vision glazed over as I took in the sight of the guy, and under my breath I said, “Goddamn.”

She’d glanced at me, smiling at my reaction. “You jealous?” she teased. 

I had shrugged, even laughed at that. “No. Just turned on.” 

She’d said something similar to that a hundred times. Hell, even I had, but only about other girls. Not once had she ever reacted poorly to it, other than an eye-roll or some scoffing. So I didn’t think it would be a problem to say it about the actor. Well, actually, I didn’t think about it at all. I just did it. That was how comfortable I felt with her. 

But she’d stiffened beside me, and for the rest of the movie she didn’t say anything. We left the theater and didn’t even make it to the car before she asked, “Are you gay?”

This question had confused the shit out of me, and I’d gawked at her for several seconds before responding, “No?” I hadn’t meant to make it a question, but I couldn’t understand how she could ask me that when I’d woken her up that very morning by eating her out. Like, _obviously_ I wasn’t gay. She was one of the sexiest people I’d ever seen. 

“Then what the hell was that?” she’d asked, gesturing to the theater as we climbed in the car. It hit me that I’d never even told her. It made me feel guilty. I felt like I’d kept a dirty secret from her, like I had a twisted fetish or something. 

“Why?” Connie asked me now, “What’s wrong with being bi?”

“Well, nothing. But I told you, I was ashamed of it for a really long time. I thought it made me, I don’t know, perverted?”

Connie snorted. “You always seemed so proud.”

I shrugged. My stomach twisted some more, feeling like I had disappointed him. I wanted to sink underneath the water, but settled for resting my head against the shower wall. 

“It’s different now. I’m different now.” My voice lacked conviction. Connie didn’t look like he believed me, but he didn’t call me out on it. 

“You shouldn’t have had to feel like that.”

“I know.” This time it sounded believable. Connie leaned in to kiss me. As our lips touched a weight was lifted off me. Admitting all this had made me sure I’d lose him, but I hadn’t. Not yet. 

“So what happened?” 

“She told me to ‘never lie to her again’. And I didn’t. But she always thought I was. She’d check my phone without my permission. When I went home to visit my mom, she insisted on coming with because she thought I was cheating on her. She didn’t want me to hang out with friends unless she was there, and the only reason she didn’t hate you was because you were with Sasha by then.”

Connie’s eyebrows raised. The water had cooled down. It had slowly begun to drain. The damp areas of skin above the surface tightened with goosebumps. I was shivering. Connie knees hugged my ribs, warming me up a bit. 

“You broke up with her?” he asked. The hope in his voice stung.

“Nope. I let her come home with me to meet mom, but my mom hated her. And well, she hated my mom. So when I went home to see my mom again I refused to let her come. Again, she thought I was cheating on her and she broke up with me. She told everyone that I had cheated on her, _with a guy_ , specifically. She wanted everyone to think I was gay. She doesn’t talk to me anymore.” 

“You shouldn’t talk to her.” Connie’s grip tightened. He stared at his legs, avoiding eye contact with me. He was mad, but I didn’t think at me. He sighed. “Is that it?”

Almost imperceptibly, I shook my head. My face flushed. Even thinking about this one made my chest feel heavy. I could feel his hands all over me still. Any time I thought about it, I felt like he was watching me. 

“Connie,” I whispered. He looked up at me. “I don’t know if you want to hear this one.”

“Well, I think I do.” His expression hardened. 

So, with shaking hands and an erratic heartbeat, I told him about my first high school boyfriend. In three months, I’d turn eighteen. I thought I was basically an adult. Thought I could do whatever I wanted. And I had been waiting years to be with a guy. I had finally come to terms with the fact that I liked them. I’d already slept with a couple, but I didn’t date them. I couldn’t at the time. But finally I came out to my mom. 

Everything was changing. And I wanted a boyfriend _now_.

I didn’t meet the guy until I went to a friend’s party. He was the party host’s older brother, home for spring break because he was actually a senior in college. We met at the party. I was actually really drunk when I met him, and he ended up carrying me upstairs to his room. 

He didn’t touch me that night. At least, not that I could remember. If he did, it was after I passed out. I didn’t think about this then. When I woke up, I thought he was the nice guy that saved me from a night of throwing up in someone’s car and getting grounded for a month when I stumbled through my bedroom window drunk, to find my mom sitting on my futon. 

He brought me coffee in bed and gave me an aspirin. We talked. And before long, that same morning, he said, “Hey, my band’s got a gig tonight. Wanna come?”

I remembered blushing, combing my fingers through my hair, feeling grateful for my stubble because it made me look a bit more mature. I was so ashamed for what I was about to admit. He probably had no idea how young I was. “I would but – I can’t. Not eighteen.”

He shrugged. “I’ll get you an ID. Come.”

I went. And I went to the next half-dozen of his gigs. For weeks, he didn’t touch me. It wasn’t because I wasn’t “ready” or because of my age. It was because he shared a dorm with three other guys who didn’t know he was gay and we couldn’t get away with it. Secretly, I was grateful. I’d never been with anyone who would date me even if we weren’t having sex. I felt like we were taking it slow. Like it might even be serious.

And then one night he invited me to the lead band singer’s house. It was empty that night. The lead singer was out of town. We put in a movie and ordered pizza and hung out like usual. But I wasn’t feeling well. I’d been sick the last couple of days. 

So when he made a move on me that night, even though I wanted it too, I said, “Dude, I feel like shit. Tomorrow, okay?”

We were already in bed. Already spooning. I was already half asleep. But he propped himself up on one elbow. “You don’t think I’ve waited long enough?”

“What? No – I want it too. I’m just –”

“Look, no other guy would wait this long. You’re lucky I even like guys. You know how many chicks at my gigs ask to come home with me?” I felt like that was such an odd thing to say. Like, in what world was anybody lucky for being gay? And since when did it matter? He’d never even brought it up before.

“Whatever. We can do it tomorrow morning.”

But he rolled on top of me. Started kissing my neck. My stomach was so nauseated that I had to swallow just to stop myself from throwing up. I tried to push him off. But he was bigger. I was so thin, then. So frail. 

“What the fuck? Come _on_ ,” he said. 

“ _No_.” 

He rolled off of me. I sighed in relief, but felt sick for a new reason. For so long I thought he was the nice guy. Patient with me, taking it slow, seeing where it went. And all along he’d just been waiting for an opportunity.

“Fine. I’ll just find someone else, then. Who actually wants to be with me.”

I rolled onto my side to face him. “What do you mean? It’s not that –”

“You should go,” he said. 

We were miles from my home. I had no idea how to get there. And by his tone, I could tell he was suggesting I walk. In the middle of the night. In the cold. All the way home.

“Fine,” I said. “Fine. Get a condom and lube.”

He only got lube, and I couldn’t muster the courage to demand he grab a condom too. Because I knew he’d kick me out. And somehow, all I cared about in that moment was keeping him. He was my first boyfriend. And even if he didn’t love me, I had loved him. I wanted to do this for him, in some way. 

But he fucked me like he’d fuck a Flesh-light. I couldn’t remember if he even kissed me. 

When I was done speaking, Connie and I were both silent for several minutes. He slid his hands away from me, to cover his face, and I realized his eyes were bloodshot. He hadn’t cried, but he’d gotten close. 

“Connie,” I whispered. He didn’t respond. “I think he raped me.”

Again, he said nothing. 

“I didn’t – it didn’t feel like it then, you know. Cause I gave in and if – if it had been a different day or whatever I – you know, I would have wanted it but –”

He rested a hand on my thigh in a way that clearly meant I should stop talking.

But I didn’t. A sob bubbled out of my throat as I said, “And it hurt. It – he didn’t force me, but it hurt so fucking bad. I bled. And –”

“Jean!” he yelled, slapping the water with his hand so I would stop talking. I shivered and hugged my arms to my chest. Tears rolled down my cheeks and I wiped them off right away. My face was steaming. I felt humiliated. I felt like he was so angry with me. All I wanted to do was be alone, in the tub, in the dark, and never leave. “Jean,” he said again, this time so much softer. 

He placed a hand on either side of my face.

“I’m not good at this,” he said. “I’m not good with words, and understanding things. And I hate that. But...I – I know that you don’t have to bring me home to meet your mom. You don’t ever – ever have to do anything. Ever. What they did – what _he_ did was wrong. Was so wrong.”

He paused to swallow. I wished we were out of the tub. I wanted to be closer to him. I wanted to sit in his lap or be wrapped around him in our bed like we always were when we woke up. No matter how close we were after this, it wouldn’t be enough.

“I won’t ever let it happen again. I will never treat you like that. But – but even if we don’t – I won’t ever let anyone else treat you like that again either. I – can’t believe I didn’t notice – I just didn’t care enough. I didn’t pay any attention. I wasn’t smart enough to see and then – then I got mad at you like it was your fault or something and I – I won’t ever forgive myself for –”

“Connie Connie Connie,” I sputtered, pressing my forehead against his. “Don’t.”

He must have understood what I meant this time, because he stopped blaming himself. He would never know how hard I worked to hide how my boyfriends and girlfriends had treated me. I didn’t even realize at the time what was happening, but on some level, I knew. I knew that I couldn’t let anyone see. 

“I’m so sorry, Jean.” His voice tremored. He wasn’t apologizing for himself, right now. He was just sorry everything had happened.

And I was too. I’d never let myself even think it, let alone say it. But ever since dating Connie, ever since being treated right – for once, being treated the way I treated the others – I had begun to wonder. And based on his reaction, I was right. 

My past significant others had abused me. One had raped me.

And I knew I was a long ways away from coming to terms with this. From feeling better. Feeling like myself again – whoever that was, it was so long ago when my trust in others had been taken from me. But I still felt a lightness in my chest, an ease in my breaths because I had finally let myself believe it. I hadn’t made it up. It was real. And I had a right to feel any way I felt about it for as long and as much as I needed to. 

“I know I can’t magically make it all better. Or make it never happen.” He kissed my forehead before pressing his against mine again. “But if I could, I would.”

I smiled at this. He was right. And I had worried that he wouldn’t understand. That he’d think now that I’d admitted it, and now that I had him, it would be like nothing had ever happened. But to be honest, every once in a while I had a nightmare about my first boyfriend. Waking up with him the next morning, in pain, walking out into his kitchen as he made coffee. Him driving me home after that. Us texting that night, as if it was no big deal. A mild spat. Like I hadn’t spent the whole night crying, trying not to bend any certain way because the pinch of pain inside of me would remind me of what had happened. 

So it wouldn’t suddenly be okay. But for now, it was enough for me that he understood that.

“Thanks,” I said. “For getting it.”

He huffed out a laugh like he couldn’t believe I’d thank him for that, but didn’t say anything about it. “It’s because I love you.”

“I know. And it’s because I love you that…I think you should come home with me.”

His head jerked back. He stared at me like he was concerned. “Are you sure?”

I nodded. I could at least do that. My mom would adore him. And I wouldn’t have to be afraid of what she saw, because she wouldn’t see anything wrong with the way he treated me. “I trust you.”

Connie kissed me. All tender and slow and soft, and I’d never felt this vulnerable or safe before. It was almost too overwhelming. I almost cried some more. Almost sobbed.

But we climbed out of the tub and dried off. Connie was being ridiculous, touching me like he feared I’d pop. But still, unable to stop touching me here or there in some way or another. Fingers trailing down my spine. Lips pressed against my shoulder, just for a second. Toes bumping into my feet. Stomach brushing against my back. Hand threading through my hair. So much affection just walking from the bathroom to the bedroom. 

We dressed silently. We both had our own dresser, each on either side of our bedroom door. While I dug around for my favorite pair of sweats, I kept catching Connie looking over his shoulder at me. I sensed that he was internally debating, weighing pros and cons, deciding whether or not to say something to me. Connie didn’t do stuff like that. Connie didn’t think ahead, and didn’t try to be practical, or cautious, or tactical. 

It freaked me out. Part of the reason I didn’t want to tell him about my history with significant others – share it with anyone at all – was because I knew he and everyone else would look at me differently.

“Just say it, Connie,” I said.

He perked his head up to meet my gaze, wearing a guilty expression as much as a startled one. “Say what?”

“I don’t know,” I replied, as I pulled a sweater over my shoulders. I only had one sweater. I only ever wore it when I was either sick or feeling like complete shit. “But say it.”

“Do you, uh…feel uncomfortable when I, you know…top?” he asked. “You know, have I ever…Made you? Feel like that guy did?”

I wasn’t expecting that. I never expected anything Connie said. I smiled. I thought about those first few days together all the time. Spent almost entirely in bed, except when one of us had to go to work or school. We’d just rotate between eating, showering, cuddling, napping and fucking. And he and I took turns. I’d never had a verse boyfriend before. All the guys I’d seen, whether I’d gone on a few dates with them or had spent several months with them seriously, had all been one or the other.

I topped Connie our very first time. And he topped me the next. And ever since we took turns. Not always every other. But if he fucked me every day for a week, I would be fucking him every day the next.

It was his thing, more than mine. I liked fucking and I liked getting fucked and usually I was just like, fuck yeah, fucking. Didn’t matter how it happened. But Connie gave a shit about it, and I guessed it was some leftover habit he’d adopted from his relationship with Sasha. If she got him off, then he had to get her off. That type of thing. 

But with Connie, if I had to pick, if he suddenly told me that he didn’t want to switch anymore, I would choose to bottom. 

I loved it. I loved it since the first time he fucked me, that morning after he drove home from Sasha’s and declared he loved me in our entryway. 

…

We kissed in the doorway for a long time. We weren’t in a rush, and I got the sense that Connie wanted to take his time. Not just because he wanted to savor it, but because he was still nervous about doing this with me.

I wanted to douse his worries.

So I kissed him as passionately and as sloppily and as grossly as I needed to in order to make him more turned on than nervous. I didn’t fail. His body pressed close to me and I could feel how hard he already was. I shivered as his hands slid over my stomach, tracing the lines of my abs and brushing his fingertips through my happy trail. His hands roamed down past my waistband and around me. They slid into my sweatpants’ back pockets and gripped on to my ass. I groaned into our kissing, pulling him closer by his waist. 

“Fuck me,” I said. 

He jerked his head back. “Like, uh, top you?”

I nodded before leaning in to kiss him some more. Then I pressed my lips against his ear so that he would feel my breath and my tongue. “Fuck me, this time. Wanna feel you inside me.”

His body shuddered and his length twitched, straining at his jeans. I wondered if Sasha ever talked to him like that. I wanted to be better than her in every way. I wanted to do everything she’d never done.

“Jesus, Jean,” he breathed. 

“What?” I grinned, knowing exactly what. Admittedly, it was a little weird for me too. Even if I had always daydreamed about having sex with him, talking to him the way I had so many others, he was still my best friend. He was still the guy that I had kept arms-length away since I met him. I knew a lot about him, a lot, but some lines weren’t crossed until you were more than just friends. We were meeting each other again for the first time. But as boyfriends now too, along with best friends.

“I can’t believe you’re like this,” he said. 

My lip quivered and a pang of insecurity waved through me. “Is it a bad thing? I don’t have to talk like this – I mean most people – but you’re not most people so I shouldn’t have –”

He placed his hands on either side of my face. “It is the opposite of a bad thing. It’s hotter than even I could have come up with and that – that’s saying something, dude.”

I laughed under my breath. “So…you want to…?” 

He swallowed. “I don’t know how.”

“You never did with Sasha?” I asked.

He shook his head.

I grinned. “Come here.”

I pulled him by his waistband toward my bed. He eased over top of me, kissing my neck and collarbones and jawline. He wasn’t as timid as he had been last night. He touched me without hesitation, or over-thinking, or performing. 

We began to undress each other, with some awkward fumbling and bumping into each other. He laughed nervously, but I cut him off by stroking him through his jeans. He gasped and leaned down to kiss me again. He was all tongue and biting and lip-smacking now. 

“I’m already losing it,” he breathed, when our lips parted. 

I smiled and bit my lip as I continued to touch him. With one hand he inched my sweatpants and boxers down, exposing me. His pupils dilated at the sight of my cock and he forgot to keep pulling my pants down.

“Connie?” I asked, huffing out a laugh. “Did you forget how to think?”

He shook his head to snap himself out of his daze. As he pulled my clothes all the way off, he said, “Sorry. I like looking at you.”

After sliding off my socks, he unbuckled his belt and let his saggy jeans drop. Nearly all of his clothes didn’t fit him right. It was a combination of being so short and skinny, and hating all types of clothes that would probably fit him right. Most of his wardrobe consisted of hoodies, tank-tops with low-hanging arm holes, and basketball shorts that reached midway down his calves. 

When he came back to me he was naked, and chose to lay between my legs. He was so short he couldn’t easily reach my mouth, so he hoisted himself back up and straddled me. My cock throbbed at the sight of his legs spread on either side of me and his heavy dick laying against my stomach. I gripped on to his hips and his ass. I’d imagined what he looked like naked a lot. I couldn’t count how many nights I spent a portion of jerking off, and trying to imagine what his dick looked like. 

It was so much better than I ever imagined. 

“This is so weird,” he said. 

“What, you never straddled Sasha?” I snickered.

He deadpanned at me. “No. Gotta get used to it, I guess. Just another reason to hate being short.”

“You hate sitting like this?” I asked, as I spread my hands over his thighs. Goosebumps spread across his skin. “’Cause I love it. Love looking at you.”

His eyebrows rose. “Guess I never thought about it. But…I don’t mind it. Since you’re a guy. I do wish I was taller than you though.”

“Why?”

He shrugged. “Don’t know. Doesn’t feel right being shorter than my – boyfriend. Partner. Significant other. Significant whatever.” 

I smiled. “You know no one looks at a gay couple and thinks one of them is supposed to be taller, right? Like, that’s a straight people thing.”

He wore such a blank expression that I realized it hadn’t occurred to him. With Sasha, he’d always been given shit for being shorter than her. To most people, they must have looked pretty awkward together, though I never thought anything of it. But with me, no one would be able to tell which of us was “supposed” to be taller. They could pull the whole so-which-one-of-you-is-the-girl thing, but Connie and I were both pretty masculine. Neither of us had any token stereotypical “gay” traits for straight people to rely on. 

“I can’t believe how different everything is,” he said. “Feels like the world’s flipped upside down.”

I pulled him close to me by the nape of his neck and kissed him. I still felt insecure. Worried he’d suddenly change his mind. The moment would slip through my fingers like sand and he’d be straight again, leaping off of me in horror that his dick had touched me. “Is it a good thing?”

He nodded. “It’s the best thing.”

We kissed long and slow for a while. I kept smiling through it. Connie kept accidentally tickling me, and I’d laugh, which would make him laugh too. I felt so happy that I didn’t care where this went, if it went further at all, actually. But gradually, Connie eased lower and lower, kissing over my chest and my nipples and my stomach until I could feel his breath against my cock. He stared at it like it was Mt. Everest. 

“Dude, relax. You don’t have to.”

“But you did for me.”

I scoffed. “I wanted to.” I really, really did. I’d been wanting to swallow him since the beginning of time.

“But I want to, too,” he said. “Besides, it’s my job to.”

I arched an eyebrow at him. “What, because I’m bottoming?”

He took a second to think about it, momentarily derailed by my question. “I mean, yeah, probably. I don’t know how it works with guys. But, I mean…I’ve always done this first.”

I got an intrusive image of Connie’s head between Sasha’s thick thighs and I flinched.

“God, Connie. I don’t want to picture that,” I spit.

He gave me a guilty expression. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to.”

“Whatever,” I said, “It’s okay.” Because his head was between my legs now. 

And _God_ was it ever. He didn’t put it off a moment longer. I thought he tried to distract me from the Sasha thought, and it really worked. He didn’t know what he was doing. I felt his teeth once or twice and a couple of times he took the word “suck” a little too literally. But he listened for what made me moan and kept at it. I knew he couldn’t make me come, though. I was used to expert blowjobs from people who’d given out many and knew what they were doing. But Connie made me feel good. Made me guess what his mouth would do next. Made me get impatient and needy because I plateaued and was desperate to be pushed over the edge.

“Fuck, Connie,” I breathed, gently pushing his head down a little farther. He didn’t struggle with it. I watched his full lips spread around me, swallowing me, and resisted the urge to fuck his mouth.

“Come on,” I said, “Fuck me. Fuck me, Connie. Fuck me before I come on your face.”

His eyes widened and he choked for a second because he forgot what he was doing. When he lifted his head, his eyes were glazed over. He looked like he was waking up from a coma until he shook his head again. “Lube?” he asked. “Condom?” He glanced around and then at me. “Uh…step-by-step assistance?”

I snorted, and rolled over to get the lube out of my nightstand drawer along with a condom. I’d go to the clinic in a few days to get tested. I was always clean because I always used a condom, but now that I was in a serious relationship and wouldn’t be fucking around anymore, there was no need. And I wanted to see Connie’s face when I told him he didn’t have to use one.

I handed both to him. “You’re gonna do exactly what I did yesterday.”

“I don’t wanna hurt you.”

I huffed out a laugh. “You won’t. I’m used to it.”

He gave me a look like he was exhausted and said, “Yeah, that helps. Can’t wait to be the first guy to fuck it up.”

I gave him a shit-eating grin, but decided to have mercy on him. “Okay, hand the bottle to me.”

He did, and I spread some of it across my fingers. I didn’t press my fingers in, but I slicked myself up. I loved the way he watched me. Loved the way he licked his lips and the way he pushed my legs back for me so he could get a better view. I couldn’t trace any confusion on him this time, like I had last night. He liked this view. He wanted me and he knew it. 

I handed him the bottle back. “Okay, start with one. Your middle finger. And go really slow.”

He nodded, apparently satisfied with these simple directions. He did as I said, and already I couldn’t wait. He didn’t hurt me, just like I knew he wouldn’t. He eased his finger in and out and I pressed my lips together as his finger slid over my prostate. He didn’t even know it but he was already making me feel good.

By the time two were in, he forgot he didn’t know what he was doing, because now he did. There was nothing to it, really. 

“Should I do a third?” he asked.

Normally I didn’t need three. But eyeing his cock again, I figured with him I probably would. I nodded at him. He did as I said, and I let out a giddy and surprised moan as his fingers put more pressure on my prostate.

“There, there,” I said, forgetting the purpose of all of this and wanting nothing more than to fuck myself on his fingers.

His eyebrows furrowed. “What? Where? Where’s what?”

His fingers halted and I whimpered. “Press up.”

“Like a button?” he asked.

I laughed which made him laugh too. He really had no idea how to do this and I loved it. “God, Connie. My prostate. Press –” My words slurred into another moan. “Yeah, yeah. There. Oh fuck, _there_ ,” I panted. 

“God, you sound so fucking hot,” he said. “You’re the hottest thing I’ve ever heard.” 

I glanced down, watching him stroke himself and I couldn’t wait any longer. “Put the condom on. I’m ready. I was ready a year ago.”

“Fuck, okay,” he said, scrambling to tear open the condom. He dropped it twice but finally managed to rip open the wrapper and slide the condom down his length.

He adjusted himself between my legs. I hitched my own up and pulled them back so he could see what he was doing. It took him a moment to ease in – wasn’t the same as sliding into a vagina, not as easy – and as he did he damn near sobbed at the sensation. His eyes rolled back.

“Oh my _God…Oh my fucking_ God. So tight,” he panted, “So tight and hot and fucking good.”

Unlike him, I wasn’t in a similar state of ecstasy. He was bigger than I thought and it stung like hell. I squirmed a bit, adjusting my hips, trying to find a more tolerable angle. Finally, I exhaled and my body was broken in to his. I closed my eyes for just a second, savoring the feeling. I hooked my ankles around his back and placed my palms on his cheeks. “Yeah? Better?”

He nodded. “So much better, baby.”

My jaw fell when I heard him call me that. “Baby?”

His eyes widened as he realized the pet name had slipped. “Is that okay? Sorry, I – during sex I get all – sorry.”

I kissed him sloppily the way I knew he wanted it. “Yeah. Say it all you want.”

“Okay,” he whispered. He looked me in the eyes. “I love you, baby. You feel so good.”

I shuddered. My breath vacated my lungs and I stared into his eyes and thought that my life was perfect and that I could never expect anything more from the universe than him. “I love you, too,” I rasped.

And he began thrusting. 

I went into a trance. My whole body went numb. I couldn’t feel him pressed against my chest. I couldn’t feel him thrusting inside of me. I couldn’t feel anything at all, as if I didn’t have a body. I couldn’t hear anything, either. And I stared at Connie like he was someone I’d never seen before, and then took a step back from my body, and looked at the both of us like we weren’t us and I was just an observer. 

I watched Connie kiss my shoulders and chest. I watched him bite his lip, his eyebrows furrow, and his eyes glaze over from how good he felt. I watched his body shift, as he thrust into me. His muscles coiling, his restraint with each thrust because he didn’t want to go too fast for me. He wanted it to be slow, and take a while. He wanted to last for me, so that he could make me feel good too. As good as him. 

His eyes and hands roamed over me. My cheeks, and ears, and scalp. My neck and chest and shoulders. Ribs, stomach, hips. 

He looked me in the eyes, and all at once I realized that no one had ever had sex with me like this before. The people I’d had sex with in the past didn’t have sex with me because I was _me_. They had sex with me because I was willing to. I was a means to an end for them. Some of them worried about making it good for me too, but it was always either out of obligation or politeness. They did it because they thought I was fucking them for the same reason they were fucking me, and they didn’t want to be the person that didn’t hold up their end of the deal. And then, there were plenty of them that didn’t care if I got off or not. 

But with Connie it was so different. He wasn’t having sex with me because he wanted to have sex. He was having sex with me because he wanted to be with me. No one else could replace me, no one else would do, he didn’t want sex with anyone else. He couldn’t get enough of me. I knew if he could do this all night he would. And then he’d do it again tomorrow. 

This was the first time I was having sex and it wasn’t about the sex. I didn’t have to dirty talk to him. I didn’t have to worry about what my _O_ face would look like or if he was the type of guy that wanted me to moan and whether or not he would like the way I moaned or not. I didn’t have to dig my nails into his back or curl my fingers in the sheets. I didn’t have to perform like I was in a porno just to make it good enough for him. And I also realized…

He was waiting for me to react.

“Jean?” he asked, as he stopped his thrusting. “Okay, tell me what I’m doing wrong. Right now.”

I shook myself out of my trance and focused on him. He looked so concerned for me I could barely believe it. 

“What?” I asked.

He blushed. “You’re just lying there. It’s like you’re asleep. Look, I know I’m not as experienced as those other –”

I placed both hands on either side of his face and kept kissing him, but he pulled away.

“Seriously,” he whispered, “talk to me.”

“You’re just…” I started, and he looked really insecure. I smiled, and struggled to find the words to tell him everything I wanted to say. “You’re so good to me.”

His blushed deepened. “Doesn’t seem like it.”

“You are,” I repeated, and pulled him toward me so that he would start thrusting again. He did, but even slower than before, eyeing me the whole time.

This time I felt him. And I shuddered with the intensity of it because I had never felt this fucking good. Every few seconds he took inventory of me, checking to see if I was in pain or uncomfortable, checking to see what made my eyes roll back and what made me gasp. He found a pace I loved without me even needing to show him. His arm hooked below my low back, angling my body just right. He lifted my leg up with one of his hands and rested it on his shoulder. He gave me a look that somehow clearly meant _Is this okay?_ and I nodded because I loved having my legs up and it only ever helped when I was with a short guy. 

I started moaning. The kind of moaning that I couldn’t help, that I would have to hold in if we were trying to keep quiet. He grinned, and thrust in a little harder and a little deeper. My body tightened around his and I lifted my other leg up, which he immediately placed on his other shoulder. This position forced me to curl up and allowed him to go even deeper. At this angle I could feel everything and each thrust made me ache. It was almost too much to handle, too much for my body to process. It made me desperate to come. I needed it now. 

“Oh, fuck, like that,” I moaned. “God, Connie, fuck, fuck, like that.”

His hips bucked as I continued to ramble and cling to him and beg him for his cock and to make me come because it was so goddamn good. His body started shaking and his thrusts weren’t even but I didn’t care. I whimpered in frustration because I was right on the edge, the edge I only ever reached when I bottomed, because if I was topping this would be close enough to make me come but when I bottomed this might last forever and that thought was agonizing. 

“God, Jean,” he choked, “you have no idea what you’re doing to me right now.”

I kissed his neck and his ear and moaned even louder as he tilted me further back. He was insecure about his experience, but he was more experienced than he knew. 

“Tell me,” I breathed, against his ear. 

His eyes widened, but he didn’t deny me. “You sound so good. Could probably come just from that.”

I shivered. I rutted down on him, shaking with how good it felt. 

“You look so hot under me,” he breathed. I could tell he was close. His arms were shaking and his breaths were shallow and his heart was racing. I placed my hand against his chest to feel how excited he was because of me. “Never seen anything so hot before.”

I grinned but then he slammed his hips into me and all I could do was moan.

“More,” I said.

“You’re so tight,” he groaned, pressing his forehead against my chest. “Even more like this. Feels so fucking good. Fuck, baby, are you close? Please tell me you’re close.”

I kissed him hard. “I am, I am,” 

“Just wanna make you come,” he rasped. “That’s all I want.”

I whimpered and nodded, because I was so close and coming was all I could think about now. The fact that he cared whether or not I came made me need to come even more. 

He mirrored what I had said to him yesterday, and asked, “What do you need me to do?”

“Harder,” I said, and Connie cursed. His thrusting sped up and all at once the pleasure rushed through me. My back arched from how thorough and deep and so intense it felt. Even after the come splattered against my stomach, I tingled all over, feeling weightless and exhilarated. 

Connie grinned at me, and his fingers tightened on my legs. He bent down to kiss me and didn’t stop kissing me until his body shook and he groaned deep in his throat. After he came, he thrust a few more times weakly, and didn’t pull out. I didn’t want him to.

He kissed me for so long after, tenderly. When he stood to throw the condom away, I pulled him back into bed with me as soon as he was within reach. He scooted in facing me, and smiled. “Baby,” he whispered.

“Yeah?” 

He shrugged. “Nothing, I just wanted to say it.”

I wanted to say something. I wanted to explain how much what he’d just done meant to me. But like always, I didn’t know how. So I kissed him some more, and he understood. 

…

I took the three steps it took to get to the other side of our tiny bedroom, and slid my hands around his waist. He was already dressed, wearing one of my shirts – which fit him better than his own shirts – and I curled my fingers in the fabric. He didn’t touch me back. I didn’t think he knew he could.

“I would have told you,” I said.

He let out a breath. “You didn’t tell them.”

That stung, but I couldn’t figure out why. He was right. And it was a fair point. I couldn’t blame him for wanting to make sure.

“You’ve never made me feel like that.” 

He tilted his head at me. “You sure?”

I smiled. “I’m sure. I’ve never been surer of anything.”

His eyebrows rose. He looked up at me, still not certain but not willing to argue with me. “Because, Jean – like, I don’t need to top. Ever again. It’s not like I don’t –”

It took me a second to figure out where he was going with that. “What? Connie, no. _No._ I _love_ when you top.”

He shook his head in confusion, eyebrows furrowing. He was still on the am-I-sexually-assaulting-my-boyfriend conversation and I had moved on because I knew even if he didn’t that Connie had never done any such thing ever. In his life. Even before me. He just wasn’t that guy. Most guys were. But he wasn’t.

“You _do_?” he asked.

“You can’t _tell_?”

“Well, I mean…I just assume almost everything you do is to make me enjoy it.”

I blinked at him for a long moment. “Why?

“Because. You’re so fucking hot. I assumed it had to be on purpose.”

“Let me get this straight: You thought that I was acting. Like, someone in porn does?”

He gave me a guilty expression, but nodded. “I’m just not that good in bed, Jean. On a scale of one to ten, I’m a solid six. And, I, have accepted that.” 

I snorted and shook my head. “Well, it’s not on purpose.”

He let out a relieved breath, and stood on his toes to kiss me again. I held him tight against my chest and kept kissing him. When my hands slid lower on his waist, about to slide up his shirt, Connie wrapped his hands around my wrists to stop me. And, at first it hurt a bit, that he stopped me. But then, almost immediately, I realized I didn’t really know why I was about to undress him. Now that I thought about it…I didn’t want to have sex right now. At all. It was kind of the last thing I wanted to do in the world. It wasn’t because of _him_ or anything. If I did want to have sex, he was the only person on the planet I wanted to with, and, most likely if I did want to right now, I’d want to bottom.

But, I still definitely did _not_ want to have sex right now. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “But… I don’t think we should – you know. After something like that. I don’t think that’s very – I don’t know, healthy. Or whatever. I don’t think I could.”

“You’re right,” I said, and my voice cracked. My face heated up. I didn’t know if I felt ashamed or just embarrassed or what, but I suddenly needed to be alone. He was right, and I felt disgusted with myself for even trying. “Uh…so. When’s the uh…? Trip? Happening?”

Connie’s head jerked back. “Oh, I didn’t know we were still going.”

I nodded. I was having a hard time keeping my breathing even. My hands were shaking, so I shoved my hands in my pockets. “Yeah. So when is it?”

“It’s this weekend but – Jean, are you – are you okay?” He leaned in to get a closer look at me, as if to check if I was crying again, but I forced myself to blink and look normal. 

“Yeah, just – tired. I think I’m gonna nap.”

“Oh, okay, I’ll –”

“Alone,” I blurted. Great, now I probably hurt his feelings too. I just couldn’t help it. The thought of him lying next to me while I held in a panic attack was about the second to last thing I wanted to do right now. “Just because, I –”

Connie shook his head like don’t-worry-about-it, and kissed me. “I told Sash I’d come over again today anyway.”

“You did?” For some reason, I didn’t believe him. Even though they broke up, he was still best friends with her. He went there all the time. But, normally he knew a day or two in advance. Or I’d hear him talking to her on the phone, or something. And he already went there once. 

“Yeah,” he said. “I mean, I wasn’t gonna until later but if you’re – I’ll just go now.”

I opened my mouth to protest, but he was already stepping out of the room. I could have stopped him, but I didn’t want to. Not really. What I wanted to do was get on my computer and look up all the people I’d slept with in the past year by name, and ask myself:

When I had sex with them, did I even want to?

And as soon as the front door slammed, that was exactly what I did. On Facebook, I one by one sorted through the guys and the girls I could remember being with. Most of them I sorta kinda knew from this or that. I rarely hooked up with anyone who was a complete stranger. Even with strangers, I ended up getting their number or friending them on Facebook by the end of the night. Not because either of us wanted to keep in touch with each other. The only reason we – I, at least, needed to feel like it wasn’t meaningless. I needed to feel like the reason I was hooking up with him or her was because I felt something more for them, felt some potential between us or some crap like that. None of that was true, but it made going through with sex easier. 

By the time I’d relived the memory of fucking the last twenty people I’d been with before Connie, I couldn’t make myself look anymore. None of the memories were pleasant enough to remember. For the life of me, I couldn’t say one way or another if I wanted to have sex with them when I decided to. I just did it. Having casual sex constantly, was apparently what I did.

I felt sick to my stomach. Showering until the water went cold didn’t help. Neither did another bath. I tried to eat, but felt like I was going to throw up. How long had I been doing this? Just, randomly having sex just to do it? And why? To be liked? To check out for a while? Because I thought I had to? Because I thought it –

Because I thought it was all I was good for. 

A shudder ran down my spine. 

Oh God, I’d even been doing this with Connie. I initiated sex _way_ more than he did. And if he wanted to at a time I didn’t, I did it anyway. 

Laying down in bed, I pulled my cellphone out of my pocket. Scrolling through my contacts, I called my mom. A few rings passed on the other end before she answered, clearly busy – probably gardening – but nonetheless excited to hear from me.

“Hi, Mom,” I said, awkwardly, running my fingers through my hair. Basically since Connie and I had been going out, I’d been avoiding her calls as much as possible. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to talk to her, I was just _such_ a bad liar. The kind of bad liar that couldn’t even lie via not bringing it up. Worst of all, my mom had a way of dragging things out of me. She was my mom, what was I supposed to do? I’d blurt out that I had a new boyfriend the second we spoke for more than ten minutes about anything remotely important. “Uh…How’s it going?”

“Oh, you know. Same old. How ‘bout you, Jeanbo?” she asked. I winced. Not because of the nickname. That was what she always called me. I winced because she sounded like she didn’t want to tell me how it was actually going, because she thought I didn’t want to hear or something. 

“I’m coming home this weekend,” I said. Just…right off the bat. Couldn’t even make myself small-talk for a bit. 

“You are?!” she gasped. “Oh, goodness, Jean. How long have you known? I really wish you would tell me in advance once in a while, I got the whole house to clean by myself, you know!” 

I frowned. I needed to come home more often. And when I came home more often, I needed to come home with even less notice. More like, no notice. At all. Just surprise her so she wouldn’t spend a week in advance cleaning shit that I neither would notice nor would care about. 

“I actually just found out today.” Clearly, I said this without thinking, because it implied I had something to give away, because she said:

“What do you mean found out?” 

I sighed, and sat up in bed. Walking around never seemed to help me on the phone as much as it helped Connie, but I figured I’d give it a shot. My stomach was jittery. Eating was sort of a trial and error process today, ultimately ending with an empty stomach and drained body. So I shuffled more than walked. 

“You remember Connie, right?” I asked.

“Of course, don’t be ridiculous. Your roommate.”

That was about all my mom knew about Connie. She’d seen him a couple of times when she visited. But only ever walking from one room to another, or out the door, politely waving and wishing her a good time, but never actually having a conversation. Those were The Sasha Days. When Connie could hardly think or function unless it had something to do with Sasha, and I felt like I was suffocating every time he left my sight. 

“Well, thing is…” The rug slipped under my feet, and I slipped. Barely catching myself on the armrest of the couch, I sat on it instead of pacing. “He’s uh…he’s my boyfriend now. And he –”

“What! Since when?!” In the background, something light and metal clanked against the ground. Probably one of those tiny shovels. 

“ – Surprised me with a trip to see you.” There, I said it. No taking it back, so there. 

“He did? Jean, _how_ long have you been seeing him?” 

So I told her everything. From me crushing on him for years, to us being best friends, to his breakup with Sash – skip the experimental sex while Connie figured out his sexuality – to his declaration of love, and all the following best six months of my life. She wasn’t pleased about the whole “six month anniversary thing” but she cheered right back up when I told her he’d be coming with me. 

“Listen, Mom,” I said, over her background humming. “Connie – he’s important, okay?”

“He _must_ be. I know you’re not letting him come with to be polite.”

I chuckled at that, genuinely. She knew. Even if I never told her, she knew my rule. “Just, be cool, okay? No embarrassing stories. No fighting. No marriage pressure or asking us about our future. No scaring him off, or anything. He’s my best friend too, you know. So…I can’t – can’t really afford to lose him.”

At this, my mom paused for a while. Even the background went silent for a minute, before the familiar sound of the front door hinges squeaking interrupted. The door slammed behind her, and I could already picture her heading into the kitchen to make herself tea. Her way of letting me know the conversation was serious. “You’re scaring me, Bo. Why – why would you lose him?”

I cleared my throat, to buy myself time. I didn’t know why I would lose him. But I had every reason to believe I would. I’d lost everyone else in my life. My mom was my best friend besides Connie. Without him, I had nobody. When I started dating him, I knew the stakes were high. And they felt higher every day that we didn’t break up.

“I’m just being…precautious. This is important and I’m trusting you to – to not screw up. And to not let me screw up, either.”

“Oh, don’t worry. You know me. Always the picture of manners.”

We both snorted at that, as if she hadn’t openly cursed out my prom date in high school for wearing too short of a dress.

“Alright,” I said, “I’ll see you Saturday.”

“See you Saturday, Bo.” Her voice at this point sounded more like a chirp than a person. 

“And Mom? It’s really good to hear from you.”

She paused again, and sniffled. “You too, son.”

We said our goodbyes, and I felt infinitely better. My earlier problems weren’t resolved or anything, but they felt much further in the past than they were. They felt like they’d gone back in time, where they belong, with all my exes. Far in history.

… 

By the time Connie got home, I was in bed. Though I wasn’t sleeping, I had thoroughly zoned out, staring through my drapes being gently blown back and forth in front of the open window. The moon had risen some time ago, but birds weren’t singing. Morning hadn’t arrived yet.

The comforter ruffled beside me, and Connie’s weight sunk into his side of the bed. He wrapped an arm around my waist. His lips trailed along my neck just like they had this morning. And just like this morning, he gripped onto my ass, underneath my boxers. He pressed his length into me and sighed.

“I know you’re awake,” he said.

I huffed out a laugh. “I know. I wasn’t pretending to be asleep. Just too lazy to move.”

He eased my boxers down, pressing himself against my bare skin. “Then you don’t have to.”

I chuckled at that, but nervously. Until now, my resolve had been clear. But of course, the second I felt his fingertips on my body, I became practically brainless. I was hard too. And I wanted him. But did I? I couldn’t tell anymore. I wanted him to want me. I wanted him to be overwhelmed by me. I wanted him to not be able to think about anyone else. I wanted him to think of me as if I were this perfect, fantasy boyfriend that always said yes and always wanted it and always asked for it and begged for more once it started.

I wanted to be that guy for every single person I’d ever fucked. So in a way…I _did_ want the sex. But it was kind of like “wanting to work”. I didn’t ever “want to work”. I wanted to get paid, and in order to get paid, I had to work.

That wasn’t what I wanted sex to be like with Connie. I didn’t want it to be “work”. 

I wrapped my hand around his wrist, before he could slide his hand down the front of my boxers. Then I rolled over to face him. His eyes were wide and earnest. Already, he realized something was up. His entire posture had changed. I let go of his hands, and he pulled my boxers back up.

“I’m sorry about earlier,” he said. “I talked to Sasha –”

“And she enlightened you.” Anything he couldn’t come to me for, he went to her for. Which meant, he only ever went to her for stuff regarding me. 

“Yeah, and…she made me realize that if you’re comfortable, you know, having sex and…me topping and everything, then I shouldn’t make you feel bad about that. Like, I shouldn’t make you feel like you’re _supposed_ to be traumatized or – or messed up, or whatever over it.”

“Connie,” I whispered. He placed a finger over my lip, to silence me until he was finished.

“And she’s right. The only reason I stopped us earlier was because it was all fresh to me, you know? But it’s not to you. It happened years ago. And like, why should you have to still be dwelling on it? If you’re okay, I’m okay. And I’m not – I’m _not_ going to look at you differently. You’re the same Jean I’ve always known. This happened before we met, and I’m not going to act like it happened, you know, today or something. Like you’re a different person, or something. You’re – You’re Jean. And I love you. And – and whatever you feel comfortable with I –”

“Connie,” I said, harsher this time. He stopped, wide-eyed, clearly worried he’d upset me. But he hadn’t. Like always, he was being perfect. Wrong, but perfect. “You were right, this morning.”

“I was?” he said. “Wait – I was? About what?”

For this, I leaned in really close to him. He slid and arm around my shoulders so that I could rest my head in the hallow between his chest and shoulder. “You were right. I don’t think we – I don’t want to have sex for a while.”

He swallowed, hesitating to respond. “Is it something I did?”

“No. I just realized something today. After we talked. I have sex even when I don’t want to.”

Connie swung himself into a sitting position, accidentally dropping my head against the headboard in the process. He apologized ten times in a second and I just waved him off because it didn’t hurt and it didn’t matter and I didn’t want to get side-tracked or chicken-out and take it back.

“You do?” he asked, when he was finally certain I didn’t somehow get a concussion from the mild nudge to the head. “But – but why, Jean? Is it because I make you feel like you have to? And – and how _often_ do you have sex with me even when you don’t want to? Is there something wrong with me? Like, some reason you don’t want to?”

Connie was talking three times as fast as he normally did, and it took me a second to let it all sink in. I shook my head, and just to make him feel better, I kissed him a few times. None of this was his fault. He didn’t do anything wrong. I wanted him – needed him to know that. I sat up beside him in bed. Flicked on the bedside lamp. Adjusted our pillows so we could lean against them. We might be talking for a while. 

“ _I’m_ the one that makes me feel like I have to. And it’s not that I, like, _never_ want to have sex with you, obviously.”

Connie gave me a look like it definitely wasn’t obvious. I felt bad for filling his head with so many doubts.

“Actually,” I continued, “with you I almost _always_ want to. I want to more with you than I ever have with anybody. But this is – I think this is something I’ve been doing since – since, you know, _him_.”

Connie’s features softened at that, and he wrapped his arm around my shoulders again. 

“All my hookups…I’ve been thinking and…I don’t think I wanted to have sex with hardly any of them. And – and, I mean you know how many there’ve been,” I said. 

“I tried not to count.” Connie pressed his lips together into a thin line. 

A pang of fear pinched my gut. “Does it make you mad?”

He sighed, and itched his scalp. “Not mad, exactly. Just – just, uh, intimidated.”

“Well, I wish I could take them back. All of them. Because, Connie…I _really_ didn’t want to sleep with them.” My voice cracked at the end. I was on the brink of tears. This was too much emotion for one day. Too exhausting. Why couldn’t I just fall asleep with my boyfriend and not have to tell him everything? Why couldn’t he just magically know? Or better yet, why did there have to be something to explain?

“But, I do it anyway. Most the time…I’m the one to ask. And…” I blushed, unwilling to admit the next part, even to Connie. Right then, I was too ashamed to be myself. “I think it’s because I don’t think I’m good for anything else.”

He turned his head so I couldn’t see his face, but I could tell he was upset. His body went rigid at my words. His arm was so stiff on my shoulders I would have to pry it off if I wanted to move him. Which I very much didn’t want to do, by the way. I didn’t want him to move away. I wanted him closer. I wanted him inside me. Because I had no self-control and no apparent ability to differentiate between healthy sex and unhealthy coping mechanisms. 

Connie exhaled. “Is this because of… _him_?”

I swallowed, audibly. “Yeah.”

“Okay, well...we won’t have sex for a while.” He shrugged, then forced a smile. Clearly to make me feel better. Not about not having sex – that didn’t matter to him. I mean, it was kind of his idea. But because this was happening at all. He gently elbowed me. “At least this means I was right about something for once. Connie: one, Sasha: the rest!” He fist-bumped the air once, proudly. 

I laughed, genuinely, and leaned in to kiss him. Half way through the kiss, I pulled away, abruptly remembering there was something else.

Connie could tell. He sat up straight, crossing his arms, bracing for whatever it was. “Go on. Lay it on me.”

“You know how…” I sighed, wondering if it was too late to say “never mind”. It was. “This morning you told me you thought I was, uh, acting? When I bottomed?”

Connie slowly turned his head to make eye contact. His jaw had fallen, just a little bit. His expression was somehow both a threat and plea, for me to not tell him what he thought I was going to tell him. Guilt wormed into my gut.

“Well, truth is…I don’t think I’ve been myself.”

He scoffed. “I knew it. No one talks that dirty naturally.” He covered his face with both his hands. “God, _damn it_. I _knew_ I sucked in bed. It didn’t make sense that I would be anywhere near as good as –”

“It’s not on purpose though,” I interrupted, pulling him into me by his waist. I trailed my fingertips over his scalp. One time he told me that was soothing. It was a lot more soothing for me than him. “I – I didn’t realize I was doing it until…this morning. I – I always get it in my head that like, I’m supposed to be – Never mind. Just believe me, okay? It’s not on purpose and I’m not… _pretending_ to enjoy it. I _do_ enjoy it! I’m just pretending to be…someone else. I don’t know. Someone you’ll think is…I don’t know.”

I knew. I just didn’t want to say it. I hated talking about things. Since dating Connie, he’s forced me to get better at it – because talking about things was something he was very good at. But right now I felt like I was incapable of talking about anything. Especially important, deep, things that I would only ever want Connie to know. My face burned. Tomorrow I wanted to wake up, and pretend this didn’t happen.

“Someone I think is sexy?” Connie asked.

“Yeah. It’s – I mean, it’s not just with you. I try to be everybody’s…”

“Dream guy?” He wore an amused, affectionate expression now, and I felt even more embarrassed.

“Well, I was gonna say ‘wet dream’, but yeah. I know how it sounds. But…I’m so used to faking everything around the people I hookup with that I didn’t...know to stop when I had a boyfriend again.”

“But, Jean…I _do_ think you’re sexy. I think you’re sexy eating cereal and brushing your teeth and yawning and sneezing…and doing things that virtually everyone on the planet looks ugly doing.”

I smiled at that, despite myself. His words sort of filled my chest with light and I shivered. Holding him tight to my chest, I bent down to kiss him again. I believed him but I also didn’t. The logical part of my head knew he wasn’t lying to me. But the other part, the insecure part, the part of me that felt the tiniest bit of fear every time he went to Sasha’s…didn’t believe it for a second.

“I know, it’s just…you’ve only thought I was attractive for six months, Connie. And…it like, came out of nowhere. You know every day I wake up afraid you’re going to tell me you’re still straight?”

Connie tugged away from me. He flicked on his bedside lamp and looked me in the eyes. Suddenly, he’d become so serious. It was like we were in the bathtub all over again, but this time, he _was_ mad at me. I held my breath. Blinked a lot. I couldn’t let myself cry. It didn’t matter if my heartrate just went into overdrive. 

“You realize how fucked up that is right?” he spit. “If I had said that to _you_ about being bi you’d – you’d be all over me about it. That’s like – Pretty sure the exact thing you’d say is ‘that’s such a straight person thing’.”

My chest tightened and my mouth felt dry. On the inside, I screamed an apology because, my God, was he ever right. That was exactly what I would do. But at the same time, I felt what I felt and I didn’t care if I was a hypocrite for it. Because it didn’t fucking make sense. Out of nowhere, he’s attracted to me, and no other guy? Six months later, he hadn’t seen even _one_ other guy that he wanted to fuck?

Then why me? 

All of these thoughts were piling up inside of me, layering over each other, each demanding more attention than the other, and like always, when I opened my mouth to defend myself, to apologize, to keep the communication going, all my thoughts jumbled and blurred to the point that I couldn’t think at all.

“Shut up, Connie. This is different. It’s not like – like you can even explain it either. You don’t even call yourself bi! So don’t – don’t –”

Connie stood up then, flicked his lamp off, and left the room. The door slammed behind him. 

For the third time today, I’d turned him away when I needed him most. 

…

I woke to his hand patting my shoulder. I rolled over, immediately placing my hands on him, wanting to pull him into me. He would know I was sorry if I did that. I wouldn’t have to say it. Or at the very least, it would be easier to say with him in my arms.

“Come with me,” he said. 

I squinted at him through the dark. He still wore a serious expression, but I couldn't feel any tension in his body. As far as I could tell, he wasn’t angry. Climbing out of bed, I followed him through the dark by hanging onto his hood. He guided me to our guest bedroom – once his bedroom – where we both kept our laptops on the same writing desk. His was flipped open, lighting up the room. 

“Sit,” he said, gesturing to one of the two office chairs in the room. 

I sat, and waited for him to explain what was going on.

“I’ve been watching porn for, like, hours,” he said.

I opened my mouth, only to realize that I was not prepared to come up with an adequate response to that. Instead, I cleared my throat. He waited for me to speak though. “Okay,” I said. That was pretty neutral, right? No matter what, I couldn’t say the wrong things. One man could only fuck up so many times in one day and get away with it. Neutrality was key. “Uh…Why? Not that I care, or anything. Just, _why_?”

Connie swiveled in his seat to face me. He pulled my hands into his. I gripped tightly.

“I’ve been watching gay porn all night.”

My face heated up. Thankfully, he hadn’t turned on the light. I swallowed. “Because?”

“Don’t play stupid, Jean. I needed to know if you were right.” 

A jolt of guilt struck me. He sounded so insecure, and it hurt this time, because I had caused it. He was so insecure about so many things. Especially things that went over his head that should have been caught. I didn’t mean to make him think he’d missed something obvious. 

I blinked at him, willing myself to speak. “But – You got so angry when I? Like, you told me I was wrong, Connie. Why – And I was. I was so wrong. And I’m so sorry.”

He shook his head. “That’s what I thought. But you had a good point. If I was bi, it wouldn’t just be you.”

I sighed and leaned in so that our faces were only inches apart. “If you’re bi, you’re not going to be bi like I’m bi. There aren’t like –” I pinched the bridge of my nose, grappling for the right word to make this clear. “Criteria, for being bi. If I’m the only guy you’re attracted to then – Well, shit. I’m seriously lucky.”

He snorted at that, looking down at our clasped hands. “You’re not that lucky.” 

“Okay, I know that was super cheesy. But seriously, Connie. If I’m the only guy you’re attracted to then…I won’t think anything more of it. I’m just really fucking lucky.” Even as I spoke, I wasn’t sure if it was the truth, but I _wanted_ it to be. Six months ago, I only _dreamed_ of being the magical exception to his heterosexuality. I would have done _anything_ for that inexplicable miracle. 

And I got it. Who the fuck was I to tell the universe that wasn’t enough? 

“No, I mean, you’re not the only guy.” 

My eyebrows shot up and Connie smirked at me. He pointed at his computer screen, which had Pornhub up. 

“You found another guy?” I asked, “On _Pornhub_? That site is where erections go to die, dude.”

“Shut up. I’m not going to pay for porn and I don’t want my computer to – Okay, you know what? So not the point right now. I actually found… _a lot_ of guys.”

“Really?” I asked, more eagerly than I meant to sound.

“Yeah. A lot of white guys,” he said, rolling his eyes. “Either my type is White Dude or Porn is even _whiter_ than most movies.”

I laughed and covered my face, way too happy to be hearing all of this. “It’s whiter than movies, don’t worry.”

He laughed with me, and bit his lip before he spoke again. “Feel better?” 

I nodded. “Yeah, one thing though…why do you think you weren’t attract to guys like…a long time ago?”

My question made him anxious. He leaned back in his chair and scratched his scalp. “I don’t know. I think it’s just because, like, when I’m with somebody I just don’t pay attention to anybody else. When I was dating Sasha…I mean, I didn’t look at other girls. I didn’t pay attention to them and so…I guess it would make sense that I wouldn’t, you know, pay attention to guys either.”

“But you started dating her in college.” As soon as the words left my mouth I regretted it. I was even annoyed with myself. He literally confessed to being attracted to other men now, and gave me a perfectly good reason why he wasn’t before. What was _wrong_ with me?

“Dude, I can’t remember who I thought was hot in high school. And come on…I’m so dense, Jean. The odds that I’d even be able to recognize that I was attracted to guys –”

I cut him off with a kiss. He smiled into it and kept kissing me. 

“I’m sorry,” I said. “For being so paranoid and not trusting you.”

“I’m bi, too,” he said, as if he knew I wanted to hear him say it. “I wasn’t ready to admit it, even when we were already dating. But I am.”

I fought a smile, but couldn’t hide how relieved I was. How happy hearing those words made me feel. I climbed onto Connie’s chair, straddling his lap, even though I was way too tall to be the one doing this to him, and in a rolling office chair no less. Connie wrapped his arms around my waist, preventing me from losing my balance, and welcomed my lips. 

When they finally parted, I had no idea how long we’d been kissing, only that it felt like forever. Our hands had roamed over every inch of each other we could reach, and our breathing became so heavy our lips could barely keep contact. God, I hadn’t made-out like this since high school. I forgot how annoying it was before losing my virginity, when making out was the furthest it went. 

But I didn’t mind. Connie was giggling at my hungry kissing, and clutching on to my shirt, holding me securely to his chest. He whispered that he loved me against my lips and everything was back to normal. My life was perfect again. Somehow even more perfect than it had been last night as I fell asleep.

But of course, it had to end. Connie was tired from lack of sleep and I was so hard I knew I’d get blue balls if I didn’t do something about it _right now_. Solutions include: Jerking off, or falling asleep. When I asked Connie why he wasn’t in the same state of distress, I felt his neck heat up underneath my palm. He pointed at the computer screen, which had gone dark some time ago. 

“Six times,” he said.

My eyes widened. “Stop lying.”

“I’m not. I couldn’t – Stop laughing! I couldn’t help it! You try watching porn for like, five hours – Jean, _stop it_.”

It took me another minute or two to rein in my laughter. “You’ve never even come six times in one night _for me_ ,” I snickered. 

At this he gave me a devilish grin and mouthed up the side of my neck. “Yeah, well, we'll see about that. I bet as soon as we’re off our break from sex I catch up to that record quick.”

My body tensed under his lips. He felt it right away and flipped his switch back to Serious. 

“What if,” I started, “This break lasts like…a long time?”

He gave me a curt nod, and tilted his head the way he does when he’s thinking. His eyes wandered off, but not in a bad way. Not like he was ignoring me. After a while, he shrugged. “I don’t care.”

“You don’t?” No way in hell I believed that. Every guy would. 

“I don’t. I’ll wait as long as you need me to.”

“Connie – I mean, this – this isn’t just going away. I – Like, you have no idea what today’s done to me. I’ll – I’ll never be the same.”

Connie’s arms tightened around me. The closer I was to his body, the safer I felt. I didn’t want to leave his arms again until next year. 

“I know,” he whispered. When his eyes met mine they glistened, so wide and hazel. “That’s why I’ll wait as long as it takes. I already told you this morning. I will _never_ treat you like _he_ did. When you’re ready, we will. But until then, I. Don’t. Care.”

I smiled shyly at him. “Thank you.”

He shook his head. “That’s not something you should have to thank me for. And Jean? I don’t want you to just be…you know, ready. I want you to really _want_ it. Don’t ever do it because you won’t _mind_ it again. I’m serious. Because I only do it when I really want you. When – When I feel like I’ll die if I don’t have you. And I want you to feel like that too.” 

His words filled me with emotion, and I knew there weren’t words to describe my gratitude to him. So I kissed him again and pulled him into our bedroom. We undressed, just to our boxers, and climbed into bed. He spooned me like he had twice already today. But instead of kissing me or feeling me up, he combed his fingers through my hair and caressed my arm and stomach. He hummed quietly, with his forehead pressed between my shoulder blades.

The first night Connie and I shared this bed, I fell asleep terrified he’d disappear. That _this_ would disappear. 

But now, I knew more than ever that he never would. I’d always have _this_. 

…

On Saturday morning, Connie and I would hop on a train headed for Minneapolis. From there we’d take the bus to Duluth. The train ride would last hours. Connie couldn’t sleep last night. Apparently, he’d spent the hours I slept cleaning our house, claiming it would be nice to come back to a home absent of chores. The laundry was done. Dishes were washed. Tables and shelves were dusted. Both the toilet and the tub were scrubbed. Somehow, he had vacuumed without waking me up. When my alarm went off this morning, I stepped out of my room into what I thought must not be my apartment. Connie sat at our kitchen island, tapping his fingers and drinking Mountain Dew and checking the weather on his phone to make sure we’d travel smoothly.

“I can’t figure out what to wear,” he said.

I scoffed, but almost immediately realized he was serious. “Wait, what? Are you okay?”

He pivoted his barstool to face me. Right now he wore just his boxers, like he had last night, and I tried to picture him cleaning the whole apartment while simultaneously stopping his waistband from slipping below his ass. Preventing plumber’s crack was as concerned as I had ever seen him over what he was wearing.

“It has to be right. I don’t want your mom to think I’m – ”

“Like my exes?” I asked, huffing out a laugh. But it wasn’t funny, and he looked concerned. “Sorry that was – uncalled for.”

“That’s exactly what I don’t want her to think,” he said.

I shrugged and walked into the kitchen to pour myself some coffee, which he’d already made. “You know she’s seen you before. She knows how you dress. And she’s never said anything about it before.”

As I sat down beside him at the island, Connie shook his head. “I wasn’t dating you then.”

Connie’s eyes met mine, and I could see how nervous he was. He’d never met a significant others’ parents before. Sasha broke up with him before he had the chance, and now the pressure was on. My mom had high standards, but extremely low expectations. Though she hadn’t said anything to me, I knew she was preparing to welcome a complete asshole today. 

I sighed, and rested my hand on Connie’s lower back. “I’ll help you pick something, okay?”

He looked minutely relieved, and stood up. “Gonna shower.” 

I watched him go as I gulped down my coffee. I heard the shower and headed into our bedroom. At the foot of the bed sat our suitcase. He’d packed it on his own, and I found myself smiling at the fact that we shared a suitcase now. It was such a little thing, but it was special to me. Before Connie and I started dating, before we became _we_ , our apartment was split in half. He had his side of the fridge and I had mine. His shelves and my shelves, for his movies and my movies. We separated our chores and laundry. And now everything in the apartment was ours. I’d lived with him for a couple of years, but…I knew that if we hadn’t been living together before we started dating, _now_ was when we’d be moving in together. 

We were that far in our relationship. Neither of us had ever been in that serious of a relationship before.

I kept smiling as I carded through Connie’s clothes hanging in our closet. Each hoodie was worse than the last, until I reached his T-shirts, which were all equally unimpressionable. The only thing I wouldn’t choose for sure were any of his tank-tops. Just before giving up, my hand landed on a white sweater his mom made him wear in a Christmas family photo one time. That was two years ago, and it had been big on him then. He hadn’t grown much, but I figured he’d grown into it some. If nothing else, it probably fit him better.

Ten minutes later, Connie strolled into our room with a towel wrapped around his waist. I tossed him the sweater and he caught it at the last second.

“There,” I said. “You look good in white. Wear that with jeans that don’t have any holes in them.”

Connie blinked at the sweater. “You expect me to wear this all day without spilling anything on it?”

I grinned at him and kissed his forehead. “I’ll let you use my scarf like a bib.”

Connie’s eyebrows rose. “You’re going to be wearing a scarf?”

“You know it’s cold in Duluth, right?”

He nodded. “I’ve just never seen you wear one.”

“I’ve never seen you use one like a bib.”

He smiled. “It’s just sinking in that I’m finally going to see where you grew up and meet your mom and…I just feel like this should have happened a long time ago.”

I wrapped my arms around his waist from behind. “It should have.”

“I love you,” he said.

I tilted my head back, wondering why his voice sounded so severe when he said that. 

“I love you, too.” I rested my chin on his shoulder. “You okay?”

He turned around in my arms to face me. “Yeah,” he said, and already he sounded lighter. “But, we better get going.”

“I’ll get dressed,” I said, about to pull away and open my dresser drawer.

Connie’s fingers laced with mine, holding me a second longer. “Are you ready, Jean?”

I knew he was wondering if I had cold feet, but I’d never been surer about bringing home a significant other. This was the least nervous I’d ever been about introducing my mom to someone. “Yeah. Are you?” 

He nodded. “I think so.”

…

Connie fell asleep before the train even pulled out of the station. He leaned against me, and I wrapped my arm around his shoulder so that his head could tuck into the crook of my neck. Absently, I trailed my fingers over his scalp while watching the world whir past out the window.

Then, on the bus, Connie managed to stay awake. He asked me questions about where I was born, and I filled him in, occasionally pointing out the window at something as if we were on a tour. Our breath stained the window, and Connie used his finger to smear _JK + CS_ and I elbowed him for being so cheesy while he laughed into my scarf. 

I couldn’t help thinking that Connie looked right, here. The closer we got to my neighborhood, the more at home I felt and even more-so because he was there. He cared about everything I was telling him. It was like he wanted to become part of my history too.

When we finally, _finally_ reached my house, after the three-block long walk from the bus stop in the snow and prickly wind, we both hesitated outside the door. 

“This is it?” he asked, pointing at my front door that would squeak when my mom opened it. 

I grinned, as I rang the doorbell. I bent down to kiss him, listening to my mom’s feet heading toward the front door. Our breath clouded the air between us once we parted, and I couldn’t stop staring at how handsome Connie looked. His skin contrasted the snow, so much warmer and richer than every other dead thing in sight. His eyes glistened from the light reflecting off the windows and ice and snow. The cold had stained his cheeks and nose pink. I wanted to keep kissing him under the winter sky. 

The exact second before the doorknob turned, and my mom would meet the man I fell in love with, for the first time, I pressed my forehead against Connie’s and whispered, “This is it.”

**Author's Note:**

> P.s Sorry for the shitty editing. I've been really lazy lately.
> 
> Also, if you're curious, my personal blog URL is in-agony-and-ecstasy@tumblr.com and my writing-only/fandom-only blog is the-only-one-in-color@tumblr.com.


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